


Campus Coffee House

by HiddenTreasures



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Fluff, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-07 23:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12242364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenTreasures/pseuds/HiddenTreasures
Summary: Rose has a crush on one of her regular customers.





	Campus Coffee House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueboxesandtrafficcones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueboxesandtrafficcones/gifts).



> This was written for @blueboxesandtrafficcones as part of the @dwinboxbuddies event. 

He was a regular. Every morning, Monday through Friday, anywhere between 7:30 and 8am, he arrived in her shop, like clockwork. Always the same coffee order—regular coffee (their strongest brew) with room left so he could add cream and sugar—but he seemed to be making his way through their entire breakfast menu.

He was one of the fittest blokes Rose had ever seen, with his artfully-tousled brown hair and sparkling brown eyes, and his bright, genuine smile whenever he gave his order, despite the earliness of the morning. Rose always tried to make sure she was the one to take his order in the mornings, but that was often difficult to plan. Her coffee shop was a block away from a university, and students and faculty alike were always bustling in, bleary-eyed, around that time. Rose had yet to figure out if he was a student or faculty yet.

But Thursdays were the days he came in twice. It was later in the day—around 1:45pm—and his order was always the same, but different from his morning orders. The shop was dead on those afternoons, so Rose made sure she was the one to take his order.

“Caramel macchiato, no-fat milk?” she asked when he stepped into her shop.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a delighted grin. “Creature of habit, I suppose.”

“Just a bit,” she teased. “But an excellent customer.”

She scribbled his name—John—onto his cup and began preparing his drink.

This routine continued for over a year, with nothing more happening between the two of them than typical customer-employee conversation.

Rose often daydreamed of more. She dreamed that she had the courage to scribble her phone number onto the side of his mug, and that he would call her, and they would go out on a date together then fall in love and get married and live happily ever after together.

But every time he grinned at her with that boyish smile that made her heart skip a beat, she lost her nerve.

And then one day he stopped coming into the shop.

At first, Rose figured it was a one-off thing. Maybe he was sick, or on vacation. That had happened a few times over the course of the year. But after one week of him not appearing came another week. Then another. And another.

An entire semester passed, and Rose hadn’t seen her favorite customer. She assumed he graduated. That had to be it. She had always assumed he was faculty, but apparently not.

Then one day, a Thursday afternoon, the door to her shop and a ghost walked in.

Rose stared, wide-eyed, at John.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my Thursday afternoon order,” he teased, walking up to the counter.

“John?” she asked stupidly.

“In the flesh,” he replied. When she continued staring, his cheeks went pink and he dropped his gaze and said, “Er, I’ll have a medium…”

“Caramel macchiato, no-fat milk,” Rose finished for him. “Coming right up.”

As she grabbed his to-go cup and her marker, she commented, “Haven’t seen you around for awhile.”

“I graduated,” he said brightly. “You are now looking at Doctor John Smith!”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “John Smith? Really?”

He smiled sheepishly. “A little lackluster, but hey. What can you do?”

“Change it,” she prompted.

“Nah, too much paperwork,” he said.

“Well how ‘bout a nickname, then?” Rose asked

John pursed his lips then smiled. “Tell you what, how about you give me a nickname?”

Biting her lip around a smile, Rose dropped the cup she had intended to give him, and instead she grabbed a new one and scrawled a new name onto it.

“So what brings you back to my little shop?” Rose asked as she made his drink.

“I had a job interview,” he said. “I applied for a teaching position at the school. Physics.”

“I hope it works out for you,” Rose said, handing him his coffee.

“Me too,” he said. “This is the best coffee shop I’ve been to. I haven’t been able to find one of equal value at any of the other universities I’ve applied to.”

Rose’s cheeks flushed with the praise, and she popped the lid onto his cup and handed it to him. She watched his face, and mirrored the grin that split his face when he saw the name she’d written.

“Doctor!” he read, delighted.

“Seemed fitting,” she said with a shrug, but she was pleased he seemed to enjoy his new, spur-of-the-moment nickname.

He took a sip of his drink, and winced when he probably scalded his mouth, but he then said, “Just as perfect as I remember it! Brilliant! Molto bene! Well, I’m off, but hopefully I’ll see you around. Until then, Rose Tyler!”

But she didn’t seem him again until two weeks later when he burst in on a late Monday morning with a beaming grin and shouted, “I got the job!”

The few other patrons turned their heads to look at him, but John didn’t seem to care. He skipped up to the counter, nearly bouncing in his giddy excitement.

“I got the job!” he said again, looking breathless and excited and so, so sexy.

“Congratulations!” Rose said, mirroring his face-splitting grin. “Coffee’s on the house today. What’ll you have? Something new?”

John considered the menu for a moment before he said, “Surprise me! How about you make me your favorite drink? And…” He glanced around at the shop. There were two other patrons in the shop, but they both had full drinks and were typing away on their laptops. “And would you maybe want to take your break with me?”

Rose’s heart stuttered in her chest, and she felt her lips curving up into a goofy smile.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay? Okay! Brilliant!”

Rose giggled at him and at how flustered he looked, and she shook her head as she watched him take a seat at a table near a window. He’d left the seat overlooking the door for her, presumably so she would know when a new customer walked in, as though the tinkling bell over the door wasn’t evidence enough.

She quickly made two chai lattes, and grabbed a blueberry muffin for herself and a banana muffin for him.

“Here we are,” Rose said, setting the drinks and the plate in the center of the table. “Your mystery beverage.”

John grinned and picked up the mug, and brought it up to his nose. He sniffed at it, and hummed appreciatively before he took a sip.

“Mmm!” He smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “This is fantastic! Tea-based?”

“Mhm,” Rose said, taking a sip. “Chai latte.”

“Is there anything you make that isn’t absolutely delicious?” he asked, taking another sip.

Rose’s belly fluttered at the compliment, and she grinned and said, “Nope, otherwise there’s no point in having it on the menu.”

John’s eyes looked slightly glazed, and Rose realized he was staring at the tip of her tongue that she’d let peek through her teeth as she smiled.

He seemed to remember himself, and his cheeks went red and he blinked rapidly before he said, “Well, this really is amazing. I suppose I’ll have to come in regularly another day of the week and have that be chai latte day.”

“Maybe have a mystery day,” Rose said. “Mystery Mondays, or something, and I’ll just whip up something new for you. On the house.”

“I couldn’t possibly accept that,” John protested.

“My treat,” she said earnestly. “John, you’d been one of my most regular customers for over a year. And if you take this job, you’ll go back to being my regular. For as much time as you spend in here, it would be my pleasure to surprise you with a new drink every week. Besides, there’s no point in you spending money on a drink you might not like.”

John still didn’t look convinced, and Rose thought maybe she’d overstepped her bounds.

But then he smiled shyly and said, “Well, I’d still like to make it up to you. Maybe I could take you to dinner?”

Rose’s ears felt stuffed with cotton. “Dinner?”

He nodded silently, and absently rubbed his thumb along the lip of his mug.

“Okay,” Rose said.

A slow smile crossed his face, and Rose saw the way his hand had left his mug and was slowly inching towards hers. She set her hand on the table, a few inches away from his.

She didn’t take his hand, just in case she’s misread the signals, but then this fingertips brushed across hers. Her skin seemed to buzz where it touched his, and she felt warm and bubbly with happiness as she tentatively slipped her fingers between his.

He squeezed her fingers gently and rubbed his thumb across the back of hers. This was new but so brilliant, and Rose never thought holding hands could feel so intimate.

She didn’t know what they were, but decided it didn’t matter. They were Rose and John. The rest they could figure out later. Together.


End file.
